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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26629576">Love Burns Brighter</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ewebie/pseuds/Ewebie'>Ewebie</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Guess My Race Is Run [15]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Sherlock (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Established Relationship, M/M, Magical Realism, Paia's plot bunny attack, mystrade, the softest of soft</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 09:53:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,594</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26629576</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ewebie/pseuds/Ewebie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i><b>What a feeling in my soul<br/>Love burns brighter than sunshine<br/>It's brighter than sunshine<br/>Let the rain fall I don't care<br/>I'm yours and suddenly you're mine<br/>Suddenly you're mine<br/>And it's brighter than sunshine</b><br/>~Aqualung</i>
</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Guess My Race Is Run [15]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/877377</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>130</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>JustMystradeThoughts Plot Bunny Adoptions</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Love Burns Brighter</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paia_Loves_Pie/gifts">Paia_Loves_Pie</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galadriel1010/gifts">Galadriel1010</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Based on one of Paia's plot bunnies...</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“Hey there, Sunshine.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mycroft’s fingers fumbled with the knot of his tie, the nickname filling his chest with a warm glow, easing the tension in the line of his shoulders. The voice alone was a balm, soothing the rough edges of his mind after hours of frustrating meetings and depressing projections. The gentle hands slipping his tie free were a comfort and relief. And the affectionate, dark gaze was equal parts grounding and exciting.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Meeting with the PM then?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mycroft offered a rueful smile. “What makes you say that?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Nearly got blown off my feet walking back from Pret.” Tie dispensed of, the hands returned to the buttons of his waistcoat.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He is truly a windbag,” Mycroft muttered. It earned him a soft press of lips to the corner of his jaw and his shirt buttons the same treatment as his waistcoat.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Chancellor of the Exchequer at three…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The rain, was it?” He sighed as rough palms stroked down his bare sides.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Absolutely lashing. Should I be worried about my pension?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Gregory, please.” His shirt unceremoniously hit the floor.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m going to have Anthea rearrange your schedule when I’m out on scene. It was muddy this afternoon.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was a challenge to divide his attention between the wet glide of Gregory’s mouth down his neck and the fingers releasing his belt. The easy banter and the dexterous hands. He knew he was being handled, gentled and quieted with knowledgeable ease. And he wanted it, reveled in it. His trousers slid down his legs to the floor. “Is that why you’re already in your pajamas at this hour?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Needed a shower. Messy.” The words were pressed into his collarbones. “Just glad there wasn’t hail. Now come upstairs.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The teasing was nothing new. Once Gregory had known, once he had managed to quell his own skepticism and saw the truth of it with his own eyes, he had embraced the outlandish and his humor managed to keep Mycroft level, even keeled. That he’d trusted Greg, loved him, been loved in return before everything was exposed and out in the open had terrified him. Knowledge was power, and in his own experience, power was abused.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Out of your head, Sunshine.” It was a gentle prod in the ribs, made kind by a kiss as Greg laid him out on their bed. “No more thunder and dark clouds.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He hummed, the warm weight of his partner covering him, pressing him into the duvet and pillows. “That wasn’t thunder.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh?” Greg’s chin rested on his sternum. One brow up. Eyes full of mischief. “Pre-shock? Are we gonna have another earthquake?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He bit down on his lip to keep from grinning. London was not prone to earthquakes. They were rare and low in magnitude at the best of times. Most Londoners assumed it was a train, or suspiciously large lorry, or low flying jetliner. Resolutely ignoring the 3.9 quake that had tumbled an expensive vase from the front hall table and defiled their sheets beyond conventional cleaning, they weren’t worth the mention. “There is no such thing as a pre-shock, Gregory.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wasn’t really good at geology.” Greg eased forward, claiming his mouth with purpose. Every dirty trick in the book: lips and tongue and teeth, until Mcroft was clinging to him, fingers buried in silver hair, legs wrapped around hips. He pressed his forehead to Mycroft’s, breathing into the shared space between them. “What about aftershocks? Are those a thing?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mycroft groaned. More of the teasing. He opened his mouth to reply, but Gregory stole the words straight from his lips, tasting them on his tongue, rocking lazily against him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, don’t tell me. Let me find out if I’m right.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He threw his head back with a gasp at the palm wrapping around his cock. The tension of the day melted from his mind as the heated friction warmed him from the inside out.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Before Gregory, London weather was predictable and persistent. Grey. Overcast. Tepid. Dull. It wasn’t exceedingly pleasant, but it was manageable and expected. And Mycroft had always assumed that his fickle, mercurial nature was ill suited to relationships. Caring was never advantageous. It only brought about wrath and ruin.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Relax, Sunshine. I’ve got you.” The soothing words did nothing for the tension curling in the base of his spine or the bruise blooming under Gregory’s teeth where his neck met his shoulder.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After Gregory, there were heatwaves and extended stretches of unencumbered blue skies in the summer. And surely it was worth it for the divine way his skin tanned so easily, fairly glistened in the sun. Mycroft was prone to freckles and sunburn, but it was worth it to taste the sunshine on Gregory’s skin. There were also thunderstorms, practically unheard of in the city’s microclimate. That the largest and most tempestuous in a century happened to coincide with the evening that a well-concealed criminal managed to send Gregory to the Emergency Department with a horribly proficient lunge with a switchblade was merely coincidence. The terrifying miscommunication preceding the devastating ice storm, knocking out power to one third of the metropolitan area had nothing to do with the perceived cold-shoulder and everything to do with a rare, arctic current that froze the surface of the Thames. And that London was wrapped in a blanket of thick fog for the week long migraine Sherlock had inflicted on Mycroft’s person was happenstance.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I want to be inside you.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Immediately after Gregory, before all secrets had been revealed and truths told, it had been volatile. Endless surges of unfamiliar, previously hindered emotions, bursting out of him at inopportune times. Hailing when plans were ruined. Unseasonal heat in the face of a weekend alone, just the two of them. Straight line winds and sleet, droughts and torrents of rain, cyclones and hurricanes crossing the Atlantic to batter the West coast as warm currents spun up from the Sahara to bleach the beaches. But when Greg knew. When he understood. When he was finally allowed to love all of him…</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Please,” he begged. There were miles of bare skin for him to touch, though when the last of their clothes had vanished, he couldn’t tell. There were other days for lazy exploration. For the tentative touches and new experimentation. For endless teasing and drawn out pleading. And there were days like today - days where Mycroft needed the steady, anchoring presence of unabashed adoration. For slow building crests and even currents bringing fronts together. Predictable and powerful in knowing and being known.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hazy and heavy like a late summer evening, Gregory built the heat between them. Gently easing into a natural push and pull, ebb and flow, back and forth. It was so subtle at first he hardly noticed. Was content in the rocking and easy friction until he wasn’t. Until the rolling was thunder and the end of a thrust was a burst of lightning bright pleasure. Until the pressure was high and the clouds fit to burst inside him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he was there. Perched on the precipice and he couldn’t. He </span>
  <em>
    <span>couldn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span>. It was the calm before the storm. The stillness and oppressive hum just before the clouds would break and rain lashed down. The flat water beside the riptide. Dangerous and still and unbearable.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Gregory knew. He knew him inside and out. Could read the twist of his spine and the cloud of his breath. He could pool the currents into chaotic swirls and dispel them with a casual flick of the wrist. And he was merciful. Loving. Patient and dedicated. Exacting in his devotion to seeing Mycroft come undone.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It had to be something in the way he hitched his hips. The twist of his wrist on the upstroke. The lazy glide of his tongue against Mycroft’s. It had to be something. Because the kiss broke just enough for Greg to whisper his name against his lips and Mycroft was done. Gone. Hurled over the edge into the howling winds of a hurricane, the lightning storm crackling around him as he lost control of his limbs.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Bliss wasn’t a fog. Nothing so sinister or murky. It was a quiet glen during snow. Muffled and calm, shivers and oddly peaceful, blanketed with dampened skin and the full weight of his partner panting into the curve of his jaw. Reverent.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gregory broke the silence first, ever present and pleased with his lot. “God, you’re perfect.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Now settled, well after the immediacy of a new and tentative relationship, in the established comfort of cohabitation, and fathomless dread of being known, the local meteorologists had found themselves back on stable ground. Warm summer days happened, but sparingly. The sky was often overcast, though rarely dreary. Winter was cold, not bitter; the past two years had seen white Christmases, with fluffy, dreamlike dustings of fresh snow. And spring bloomed with a cautious hope. Fewer frosts and more dews. Misty weekend mornings evolved into lazy and perfect days. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Greg sighed against his neck. “Stopped raining.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He used what little breath he had gathered to huff. “Did it? Hardly noticed.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The answering smile burned into his skin. “There a rainbow?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Please.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Should I go check?” The rumble of their window panes had Greg pushing up onto his elbows, his brow raised, nothing but sunshine dancing in his eyes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That was a lorry.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Greg grinned. “Not an aftershock?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mycroft laughed, light and free, the clouds from the afternoon having blown through, the late evening sun catching on the curtains. “Afterglow?” he offered hopefully.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Greg kissed him, languidly, thoroughly, and gladly. “Afterglow,” he confirmed.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>... "Mycroft's emotions influence the weather."</p>
<p>No warnings... this is just the softest of softs.<br/>Thank you to Galadriel1010 for the sudden and on demand Beta work.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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